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Things soon got dead serious again, with an irate representative from Port Kembla, NSW, demanding answers. The affidavit adds, with an air of understatement, that there was “considerable argument around the table about that matter, which lasted for some time".

The argument was separate to the notorious AWU Workplace Reform Association which
Julia Gillard
helped set up. The Cambridge affidavit makes no mention of Mr Wilson’s then girlfriend, Ms Gillard, who was a partner at the law firm Slater & Gordon. Ms Gillard has strongly denied any wrongdoing.

The court documents underline the strangeness of the AWU saga, which has a cast of characters worthy of The Maltese Falcon.

Deputy Opposition Leader
Julie Bishop
was discussing the AWU controversy on Perth radio station 6PR in August when host Paul Murray took a call from a woman who said she was Penny, the estranged sister of Ralph Blewitt, Mr Wilson’s former sidekick.

According to a transcript of the exchange on Ms Bishop’s website, the caller said: “Don’t believe anything Ralph Blewitt tells you," she said. “He is out for what he can get."

Mr Blewitt is being supported by former Sydney radio broadcaster Michael Smith, who was sacked by 2UE after pursuing the AWU saga. (The radio station is owned by Fairfax Media, publisher of The Australian Financial Review.)

Mr Smith, a former Victorian policeman, said this week he made the recent complaint to the Victorian police commissioner about the AWU allegations. According to Mr Smith, the commissioner referred the complaint to detectives.

They asked him for more details, which he had supplied. This included internal union documents published on his blog, plus public statements such as Ms Gillard’s August 23 press conference and further comment made during a recent visit by her to Laos.

Mr Smith said he was doing his duty as a citizen by telling police what he knows. He strongly defended Mr Blewitt over criticism on radio, saying the former Vietnam veteran was not pretending to be “lily white", but that he was sincere in wanting to set the record straight.

Mr Blewitt’s adviser, former lawyer Harry Nowicki, was fined at a Vic­torian legal tribunal in 2011 for recklessly making statements under oath which a judge branded “disgraceful and dishonourable".

Mr Nowicki said he was guilty only of unprofessional conduct and had no other blemishes on his record.

He was fined $15,000 over an affidavit used in a dispute with a former client over a settlement due to her in a personal injury case.

Mr Nowicki faced a lesser finding of unsatisfactory professional conduct. The deputy president of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal said Mr Nowicki’s wrongdoing was “reckless rather knowingly" but a reckless statement on oath constitutes “conduct which practitioners of good repute and competence would reasonably regard as disgraceful and dishonourable".

Mr Nowicki denied he was on a personal campaign against Ms Gillard. “I would be very pleased if she was completely innocent of all the allegations," he said. “If the facts show that to be true, well I am just happy we have uncovered the history of the AWU," he said.

Mr Nowicki worked as a union lawyer for several years, including at the Transport Workers Union.